JFS

A number of Orthodox Jewish schools are stopping organising bar or batmitzvah ceremonies for pupils because they cannot tell if they are halachically Jewish, according to the head of the United Synagogue's Rabbinic Council.

Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet explained that the change was being made as a result of last year's court ruling on Jewish school admissions.

Speaking last weekend at an event in north London, he said that a meeting had recently taken place for young people who act as wardens in midweek services that take place at various schools.

JFS pupil Mya Goschalk has won an award for a film pitch about children in the developing world.

Mya, a 16-year-old AS-level pupil, entered the One World Media Youth Jury national competition with her proposal, 'Switched on in Paradise', after learning about a remote island in the South Pacific in a geography class at school. She tells People: "I read a blog about this competition and thought it sounded like an amazing opportunity.

Former JFS pupils evacuated to Cornwall during the war retraced their steps from Paddington to Penzance 70 years later.

More than 100 JFS students, aged between five and 13, and five teachers were billeted to families in the fishing village of Mousehole in June 1940. JFS was temporarily housed at Mousehole village school.

Eight of the evacuees and their families attended the reunion, including a visit to the school and the presentation of an anniversary plaque.

Community leaders have expressed sadness and outrage over the first case of a Jewish child being barred from a Jewish school under new admissions rules, following the Supreme Court ruling on JFS last summer.

Last week the JC exclusively reported that, after losing an appeal, 10-year-old Kayleigh Chapple was refused a place at Liverpool's King David High School because she could not pass the religious practice test set out in the school's new admissions policy. Her place went to a non-Jewish pupil.

The Liverpool case is the first to bear out what was feared might happen after last year's JFS court case: that a Jewish child eligible to get into a Jewish school under the old admission rules would end up being denied a place under the new system.

Previously, many schools would have accepted you simply if your mother was Jewish. But a year ago the Court of Appeal - in a decision upheld by the Supreme Court -ruled that the policy fell foul of the Race Relations Act.

A Jewish girl has been denied a place at King David High School in Liverpool because her family could not meet the new admissions criteria to prove her level of religious practice. The place went to a non-Jewish girl.

The Orthodox school was forced to reject a place for Kayleigh Chapple this September, even though her mother, uncle and aunt were former pupils.

The Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, will back a unilateral move by Orthodox groups to reverse the JFS court ruling if it proves impossible to achieve broader communal agreement.

However, his office stressed in a statement that he still believed the Board of Deputies to be the "most appropriate body" to pursue a change in the law.

Jewish schools were forced to introduce new entry rules last year after the Supreme Court upheld an Appeal Court decision that schools could no longer choose pupils on the basis of whether their mother - or father - was Jewish.

United Synagogue president Simon Hochhauser this week stressed the need to push for legislative change following the Supreme Court ruling on Jewish school admissions.

During a lively debate with Manchester leaders, educationists and Orthodox and Reform shul members at Whitefield Hebrew Congregation, Mr Hochhauser outlined his concerns over the ruling, which prohibits schools from choosing pupils according to their parents' Jewish status.

He suggested that it could also have implications for synagogues and communal charities.

Shadow education spokesman Michael Gove has thrown down the gauntlet to the Jewish community over the Supreme Court ruling on JFS admissions.

Guest speaker at Sunday's Board of Deputies meeting in central London, he posed a question to delegates in the event of a Tory administration.

"Tell me what you think we as a government should do to remove the allegation of prejudice against a school that has done such a wonderful job and what we can do to ensure faith schools can carry on doing the fantastic job they do?"